any serious suggestion that they were void for illegality, although the York-Talbot position, discussed below, probably helped to create that legal stability. In 1700 there was no extensive use of slave labour in England as in the colonies. African servants were common as status symbols, but their treatment was not comparable to that of plantation slaves in the colonies. The legal problems that were most likely to arise in England were if a slave were to escape in transit, or if a slave-owner from the colonies brought over a slave and expected to continue exercising his power to prevent the slave from leaving his service. Increasing numbers of slaves were brought into England in the 18th century, and this may help to explain the growing awareness of the problems presented by the existence of slavery. Quite apart from the moral considerations, there was an obvious conflict between defining property in slaves and an alternative English tradition of freedom protected by habeas corpus. If the courts acknowledged the property which was generally assumed to exist in slaves in the colonies, how would such property rights be treated if a slave was subsequently brought to England? The Yorke–Talbot slavery opinion However, the decisions of the Holt court in the wake of the Glorious Revolution had caused sufficient consternation as to the legal status of slaves that some slave owners sought clarity of the law. In 1729 various slave owners obtained the Yorke–Talbot slavery opinion made by the Crown's principal law officers at one of the Inns of Court. The law officers opined that under English law (i) a slave's status did not change when he came to England, (ii) a slave could be compelled to return to the colonies from England, and (iii) that baptism would not manumit a slave. The opinion cited no authorities, and set out no legal rationale for the views expressed in it, but it was widely published and relied upon. One of the authors of the opinion, Lord Hardwicke (although at the time he was only known as Philip Yorke), subsequently endorsed the views expressed in the opinion (although not expressly referring to it) whilst sitting in judicial capacity in Pearne v Lisle (1749) Amb 75, 27 ER 47. The case revolved around title to fourteen slaves who were in Antigua, and involved a number of technical points as to colonial law. But Lord Hardwicke held that